A collegue's wisdom
Here is a reflection that one of my collegues at work wrote before Christmas. I think it is beautiful. And because I want to make sure I have access to it next advent I thought I would post it.
"We are now in the third week of Advent – we now light three candles each evening, including the pink one, on our Advent wreaths; even the calmest and most stalwart among us feel a little twinge of panic as we try to plan how to prepare for the great mass – the Christmas.
Advent means “a coming towards, a drawing near” in Latin. We are drawing near to the great mystery of the Incarnation. The preparations of Advent take us four weeks, give or take, until the great mystery.
But we Americans are an impatient lot. Supposedly the shopping orgy that marks December starts on the Friday after Thanksgiving. On Thanksgiving Day itself, many of us spend the day plotting our shopping – 4 am at Kohl’s – gotta get that coat – 5 am at Walmart – gotta get that plastic stuff from China – until we drop in exhaustion. Some shoppers this year were so filled with anxiety that they killed a store employee, charged with maintaining order at the door. I see many trees in homes before Thanksgiving, decorations up, plastic Santas and reindeer waving happily.
If I go out on Dec 26th, I see these same trees already dragged out to the curb, discarded already.
Remember the long and sometimes tedious song, the Twelve Days of Christmas? Yes, Christmas time begins on Dec. 25 and extends until at least Jan 6 and many celebrate the season until Feb 2. The time of waiting is over! God dwells among us! Emmanuel!
But we are impatient. We celebrate all through December, crush those who fail to keep up, overspend, and are eaten by doubt, debt and anxiety. Christ Mass is transformed into a four-week orgy of consumerism and greed.
Let us think about preparing and waiting – not needing it now, today, spent and done in before the celebration. Let us prepare and draw near to the great day – then celebrate for 12 days after the event.
I’d like to end with the final stanza from W.B. Yeats poem The Second Coming:
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"
"We are now in the third week of Advent – we now light three candles each evening, including the pink one, on our Advent wreaths; even the calmest and most stalwart among us feel a little twinge of panic as we try to plan how to prepare for the great mass – the Christmas.
Advent means “a coming towards, a drawing near” in Latin. We are drawing near to the great mystery of the Incarnation. The preparations of Advent take us four weeks, give or take, until the great mystery.
But we Americans are an impatient lot. Supposedly the shopping orgy that marks December starts on the Friday after Thanksgiving. On Thanksgiving Day itself, many of us spend the day plotting our shopping – 4 am at Kohl’s – gotta get that coat – 5 am at Walmart – gotta get that plastic stuff from China – until we drop in exhaustion. Some shoppers this year were so filled with anxiety that they killed a store employee, charged with maintaining order at the door. I see many trees in homes before Thanksgiving, decorations up, plastic Santas and reindeer waving happily.
If I go out on Dec 26th, I see these same trees already dragged out to the curb, discarded already.
Remember the long and sometimes tedious song, the Twelve Days of Christmas? Yes, Christmas time begins on Dec. 25 and extends until at least Jan 6 and many celebrate the season until Feb 2. The time of waiting is over! God dwells among us! Emmanuel!
But we are impatient. We celebrate all through December, crush those who fail to keep up, overspend, and are eaten by doubt, debt and anxiety. Christ Mass is transformed into a four-week orgy of consumerism and greed.
Let us think about preparing and waiting – not needing it now, today, spent and done in before the celebration. Let us prepare and draw near to the great day – then celebrate for 12 days after the event.
I’d like to end with the final stanza from W.B. Yeats poem The Second Coming:
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"
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